Outreach Christian Ministry

by Julie Branstetter, Th.B.

Elm City, Nc

Welcome to my ministry blog. I graduated seminary at Nashville Theological Seminary in 2008, where I received my Bachelor of Theology. My outreach ministry beyond my local church is Kingdom Covenant Ministries. KCM was chartered in 2008 through the National Association of Christian Ministers. My husband and I are currently participating in the Church of God Callings and Ministries Studies Program. My husband and I have ministered worship, preached and taught the gospel in churches and other places. My family worships with a beautiful congregation at Farmington Heights Church in Wilson, NC. We help with worship and small groups there. KCM is a Christ focused, teaching and evangelizing ministry. We receive donations regularly to help national and international missions. Various brothers and sisters in ministry in other countries have already received support including Kenya, India, Pakistan, Canada, Israel and also various places within the United States.

There has always been controversy, especially in the last 150 years since the rise of the philosophy of evolution and other ideas, about the beginning of creation. There has been a great deal of push back for any scientist that supports or even shows evidence for creation even though science today further proves intelligent design daily and further debunks evolution as it continues to search. Which model of origins does scientific evidence today support, creation or evolution? Creation, however the scientist who believes it and let's it be known will find it impossible to work, discover and feed a family in today's world; no grants, no scientific community support, hardly any employment.

There was an interview entitled "The Biologist" published in The Ledger (Lynchburg, Virginia) between columnist George Caylor and a molecular biologist who prefers anonymity on February 17, 2000 that reveals exactly what many scientist must deal with in order to pursue research in today's atheistic dogmatic culture. George Caylor asked the biologist, "Do you believe that the information in the human DNA evolved?" The biologist answered, "George, nobody I know in my profession believes that it evolved. It was engineered by 'genius beyond genius', and such information could not have been written any other way. The paper and ink did not write the book! Knowing what we know, it is ridiculous to think otherwise." George said, "Have you ever stated that in a public lecture, or in any public writing?" The biologist replied, "No. I just say it evolved. To be a molecular biologist requires some to hold on to two insanities at all times. One, it would be insane to believe in evolution when you can see the truth for yourself. Two, it would be insane to say you don't believe in evolution. All government work, research grants, papers, big college lecturers - everything would stop! I'd be out of a job, or relegated to the outer fringes where I couldn't earn a decent living." George said, "I hate to say it, but that sounds intellectually dishonest." The biologist replies, "The work I do in genetic research is honorable. We will find the cures to many of mankind's worst diseases. But in the meantime, we have to live with the elephant in the room. Creation design is like an elephant in the living room. It moves around, takes up an enormous amount of space, loudly trumpets, bumps into us, knocks things over, eats a ton of hay and smells like an elephant. And yet we have to swear it isn't there!" This is not an isolated incident; it is rampant within the scientific community.

In 2004 a 81 year old British philosopher named Anthony Flew, who had been an atheist from age 15 and once debated C.S. Lewis over the existence of God, was willing to "go where the evidence leads". He concluded that evolution was inadequate in explaining the origins of life. In a recent article in the Christian Research Journal, Flew was quoted as saying, "It is simply out of question that the first living matter evolved out of dead matter and developed into an extraordinary, complicated creature of which we have no examples. There must have been some intelligence." For more examples of scientist who have been railroaded for their changing beliefs from evolution to intelligent design you can watch a documentary called, "Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed." If you truly begin to research intelligent design theories and all the evidence to lead you to a factual belief system you will find that science points to God more than ever before and as it does so it debunks evolution repeatedly.

Those who believe in evolution often call believers name, paint them as being ignorant and make personal attacks because they know that if their cherished theories are compared side by side with real science there is not a leg for them to stand on. I have often heard of Christianity being called a 'fairy tale" but it is much more of a fairy tale to believe something that has NO EVIDENCE AT ALL over something that has evidence after evidence glaring you in the face. It takes a great deal more faith to believe in evolution than to believe that there is an intelligent creator and He made everything. If Darwinist had a decent case to make they would eagerly welcome all critics to an academic forum for open debate, and they would want to confront the best critical arguments rather than to caricature them as straw men. Instead they rely on dishonorable methods of power politics and personal slandering to curtail the consideration of anything truly scientific, all to continue to hoist their philosophical theory of evolution up as if it could be backed by an ounce of real science.

Here are the quick facts that kill the evolution theory and then we will move on. All of these ideas are supported by the laws of thermodynamics, laws of physics and biological studies. 1. Something can only come from something. Something can never come from nothing. 2. Order cannot evolve from disorder. 3. Life cannot emerge from non-life. 4. Everything that ends must have a beginning. 5. There are no transitional fossils to this very day to show for a theory of life evolving from one creature to another over millions of years. Can you imagine how many carcasses that would leave behind? And yet, we have not found one no matter how many fakes and phonies evolutionist have attempted to present, ALL have been debunked! For example: photographs in biology textbooks show peppered moths resting on tree trunks in the British Isles. Contrasting photos show the moths changing from light to dark in color as pollution darkens the tree trunks. This has long been hailed as an example of classic textbook natural selection (evolution) at work. Darwinist claimed the photographs documented evolution because the moths evolved new camouflage to protect themselves against bird predators. Sadly for Darwinist it just so happens that peppered moths in the wild don’t rest on tree trunks. The photographs were staged using dead moths that were then glued or pinned to the trunk. Others used live specimens manually placed in desired positions. The real problem with the photos is that it doesn't matter if they were on tree trunks or what color they were, they were still peppered moths. Their specimen has not evolved nor had it changed. We know of many animals that can change color (lizards) to camouflage themselves from predators, but this doesn't mean they are morphing into an entirely different species as evolution entertains. It is simply a part of their divine design. This is just one of so very many examples of how far Darwinist have been willing to go to try to keep their fairy tales alive. Just a few to mention would be The Miller-Urey Experiment, Darwin's Finches, Haeckel's Embryos, Pre-human Ancestors. Darwin himself, creator of evolution, even stated that without transitional fossils his entire theory would go up in smoke. Just a few studies to mention that defy evolution would be the Bombardier Beetle, cleaner fish theory, metamorphosis, the function of bird lungs, and the plant world. There are more discovered nearly every day.

One has to wonder why evolutionary supporters are so blatantly dogmatic and entirely unwilling to be critically minded when looking at their own belief system. Why do they claim to be true to science and claim intelligent design thinkers hate science when in fact the truth is science backs intelligent design and evolution has nothing to do with real science? It’s a rouse, one unfortunately many have fallen for, but time is like a big mouth with a great juicy secret itching for recess to begin. Evolution supporters refuse to even consider allowing intelligent design theory to be presented in public schools as a theory alongside the theory of evolution and the big band theory. Supporters of intelligent design have no problem including the theory of evolution and other theories in public schools because they know that real science will speak for itself when the muzzle has been removed. Their reasoning for adamantly refusing intelligent design inclusion is to prevent religion from being taught in schools, but teaching intelligent design is not teaching religion and doesn't even support one kind of religion over the other. It only considers the possibility that the Bible might offer information relevant to the scientific community. But that is a consideration they are unwilling to make. Prior to Darwin's evolution theory many great scientist made many great discoveries because of their religious faith. Scientist like Copernicus, Keplar, Newton, and Galileo are just a few of the many scientists in which I refer. The laws of various branches of science tell us that nature's specific and purposeful functions demand a creator greater than itself. The workings of the cosmos demand a creator. Everything with design demands a designer. Cars don't just jump up out of the pavement; they are obviously created by something else and made with specificity and purpose. All of creation follows. You cannot bring something out of nothing. There are many books written on these subjects so I will now move onto our reading and what it means and how science supports what scripture demands us to believe.

Genesis 1:3 says, "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." Hebrews 11:3 says, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." We see that scripture tells us quite plainly how life came to be. God spoke everything into existence. In the course of six WORKING days He spoke all of creation into existence and it was complete. Some have said that The Big Bang Theory is supported by these scriptures. The only problem with The Big Bang Theory is that it proposes an explosion started creation and then everything evolved from there. We have sufficiently debunked evolution. (Also, carbon dating in science today has been found to be a very unreliable source for dating anything beyond a couple thousand years so the idea that we have been on this earth for more than 6,000-8,000 years cannot be scientifically proven.) We'll go into the age of the earth at some other point since this is so long already. There have been recent discoveries that support that creation was spoken into existence. I remember when I was a child in school and we learned about matter and atoms and protons and so forth. I distinctly recall my teacher teaching us that the smallest particle of indivisible matter was called an atom. Things have really changed. See, science is only man's attempt to understand what God already knows. Those claims from the scientific community at that young age in my life were not accurate, but it was all scientist had discovered at the time. Today the smallest indivisible particle of matter is called a QUARK. This is called a subatomic particle now that we know atoms can be divided into smaller parts. Particle physicists are always searching for the most basic building blocks of the world. Right now, quarks are the smallest thing that we know of and everything else is made up of combinations of quarks and electrons. I am not going to go into an in-depth study of all the flavors (types) of quarks, but I will tell you what I have come to conclude. Before the heavens and earth were created, God existed. We studied in the last article of this series how God and angels and Lucifer already existed before creation so we know there was something before OUR finite existence came to be. Many have referred to quark as sound waves and have said that a quark is sciences discovery that God spoke everything into existence. The only problem with this is that a quark is not really a sound wave. Quark is interesting because it is a subatomic particle (matter) with sound wave like qualities and is the simplest discovered form of matter. Some of the properties of a quark are that quark has electrical charge, spin, weak and strong interactions, color changes, and mass. Because quark is subatomic it is at the foundations of the creation of the heavens and earth and everything in it whether it initiated anything or not. It is subatomic matter acting like a sound wave. There must be matter already for a sound wave to exist because sound can only occur where there is "matter". It is created by the atoms of the matter vibrating against each other in a wave form. This can occur where ever there is matter; air, wood, water, metal etc. It cannot occur where there is no matter; space, a vacuum. If matter must preexist sound and quark is the subatomic make up of everything that exists, then it makes perfect sense that all things in this world came from God and His speaking came from Himself which has always existed before creation. God spoke a sound and God is the necessary matter from which that sound came and from which everything came. Through the study of biology, geology, physics we find a great multitude of evidence pointing to an intelligent creator. God speaking things into existence is much more believable than the idea that something just literally came from nothing. Not all things spiritual may be easy to prove or explain but there certainly is evidence to consider and these answers are far more reasonable and science based than those trumpeted in today's culture.

Moving on with our reading study, we find the first thing God did after creating the heavens and earth was to create and divide apart light and darkness. He called the light DAY and the darkness NIGHT. This is the point in which God created a form of time, as in measured time. 2 Peter 3:8–9 reads, ‘But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.’ This in no way has ANYTHING to do with creation. We can see from our reading in Genesis what the definition of a “day” is. Genesis 1:5 says, "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." The definition from scripture for a day is an evening + a morning = one day. The sun, moon and stars had not yet been created. This literally means that in the void of darkness, God provided light! What that light was made of is hard to say. Some have said it is when Jesus stepped into the creation process seeing as He is always referred to as the Light and the Bible tells us that He is also the Word made flesh. John 1:1 tells us that the Word was in the beginning and was with God and was God. There is no definitive way to say, but the first thing God did was shine the light of Himself into the darkness. The verse in 2 Peter 3:8-9 is referring to what eternity will be like WITH THE LORD. It is a promise that when the time is right Jesus will return and true believers will spend eternity with the Lord and time will be of no measure anymore because a thousand years and a day will be like the same thing WITH THE LORD. We see a stark contrast between a measurement of time (a day) in our world verses eternity. Since there is no beginning or end in eternity there is no real measurement of time. A day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day, with the Lord. This verse has been used by evolutionist and has even crept into the church pulpit for the sake of “being relevant” to support some kind of evolutionary idea but it simply does not mean what it has been twisted to mean. It is important that we read scripture correctly and do not add to or take from it at all. And it is very important that we not try to be so relevant to the world that we compromise the truth of the Word of God. For more information on how to read scripture, please read the very first article in the Genesis to Revelations Series entitled, "How To Read The Bible."

Genesis 1:6-7 is mysterious. "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so." The word for firmament is 'raqiya' (pronounced raw-kee'-ah) and means 'an expanse, visible arch of the sky'. It simply means the "heavens". Literally it means 'something stretched out" like hammered metal. This reveals a bit of a mystery but also a glimpse into the real enormity and power of God. Think of the actions you'd use while helping a child put together a science fair project of the solar system. It's just amazing to imagine. The mysterious part comes with the mention of waters above and below the expanse. Perhaps this means just the heavens between the waters on earth and the atmospheric moisture or could be referring to something we'll only understand in the hereafter about heaven and the cosmos itself. The division of these waters is another example of God's act of bringing order to disorder.

As we continue to read in Genesis 1:8 we see God's Lordship as he names His creations. He is the creator, the owner, the Lord of His creation. We also see that, with the passing of morning and evening, another day has passed. Genesis 1:9 says, "And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so." Here we have God making all the water on earth gather together in one place and the earth beneath rise up and appear. There are several verses in the Bible where the land is spoken of as having been one and then later having been divided and that agrees with the Pangaea theory that all continents were once connected as one land mass.

From Genesis 1:10-13 we have God naming the earth and the seas. Here is where God creates the first living organism. He creates grass, fruit and herbs all of which bear seeds of its own kind. This is the first mention of what is known today as DNA code. All living organisms have DNA. They differ subtly, but are about 99% similar. We see God, just after creating a sustainable living environment, immediately getting right to the point by creating life and reproductive processes. Soon He will create man and woman, also bearing seed of their own kind, and God encourages things to multiply and reproduce. God is a God of life and production. All throughout Scripture God is concerned about life and death and spiritual fruitfulness. Here we see the first concepts and illustrations revealed right in creation. This finishes the third day of creation in Genesis 1:13.